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Judith Sargent Murray was “one of the first feminists in the United States” (Galewski 2007, 85). She was one of the most radical thinkers of her time, perhaps the most radical in the United States. Like Esther DeBerdt Reed, she was bold and opinionated, winning her political power and respect. Her insightful, liberal “work was widely read and largely held in high esteem by her American contemporaries,” including John Adams and George Washington, both of whom she was friendly with (Galewski 2007, 85). She had relationships with their wives as well, and both Martha Washington and Abigail Adams liked her. Murray writes of Martha Washington that “one whole hour she condescendingly [generously] devoted to me, and so much friendship did her salutations connect” (Murray 1790).

Despite her political connections and the respect she had earned, Murray was aware of the context she was writing in and filtered herself accordingly. She had to be careful in what she wrote, as she “did not want her writing to inspire sufficient ill will in her readers to dissuade them from reading further” (Schiff 2000, 214). In addition, Murray did have some concern over the threat she might be posing to her own reputation, writing: “‘I have penned every essay as cautiously as if I had been assured my reputation rested solely upon that single effort'” (Schiff 2000, 214). Despite her concerns, she “dared to publish during a time when it was rare for a woman to participate in the public sphere–especially as an intellectual–and who promoted women’s rights and education” (Schiff 2000, 213).

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Judith Sargent Murray’s most prominent opinions were those about education. Her interest in girls’ education began at a young age, when she was “given more intellectual opportunity than many girls of the time, but not as many as she would have liked” (Schiff 2000, 217). Murray watched her “younger brother’s advance home schooling and his license to continue his formal education outside the home” with jealousy and began to contemplate at that point, why (Schiff 2000, 217). Later on, while married to her first husband, she became the caretaker of two nieces and wanted to see them educated (Schiff 2000, 217). Between this and her own childhood experience, her beliefs and opinions about education grew stronger and more concrete.

Murray considered education to be the foundation of women’s rights and independence from men. Education, she believed, gave women a choice that they otherwise wouldn’t have by making them capable of supporting themselves (Cheek 252). She found girls’ education to be far from sufficient and “advocated changing the education of European American girls of the commercial class to accord with existing models for elite boys” (Galewski 2007, 84-85). She supported boarding schools and “access to conventionally masculine disciplines” (Galewski 2007, 85). Most fundamental to her beliefs, was the “enlightened idea of the intellectual equality of the sexes” that wasn’t being realized simply because of educational inequalities (Cheek 253).

Murray was highly committed to these views and supported them with strong statements in her essays. She pointed to “proofs of a creative faculty, of a lively imagination” from interest in fashion, stating that “great activity of the mind is thereby discovered, and was this activity properly direct, what beneficial effects would follow” (Murray 1790). She believed in the rationality of women and their capacity to be as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than men, if only society would give them the chance.

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One of her most famous essays is “On the Equality of the Sexes,” which she wrote under the pen name Constantia. This essay conveys her strong beliefs about the capabilities of women being squandered by their lack of education. She battles against the idea that women are inherently frivolous, stating “we can only reason from what we know, and if opportunity of acquiring knowledge hath been denied us, the inferiority of our sex cannot fairly be deduced from thence” (Murray 1790). And, to explain any “frivolousness,” Murray describes girls as “constrained in one direction” and so their energy “spilled out in another” and “women developed other means of exercising intellectual capacities” (Galewski 2007, 96). She described “conventional female education” as resulting in women having a space that needing filling, and they had to result to non-intellectual interests to do that (Galewski 2007, 97).

Murray also argues for the intellectual equality, or possibly superiority, of women. She says that “men must have had a ‘high idea’ of women’s ‘native strength,’ in order to have disadvantaged them so much in the ‘war’ between the sexes” as evidence of this (Galewski 2007, 97). She branches out further than any of the other educational reform advocates at the time, defining women as constrained and unhappy without opportunities for education, rather than focusing wholly on the benefit to the republic. While others argued “from predetermined grounds,” she “served precisely to place those grounds into question,” focusing her argument on the potentials of women themselves instead of the potential of women for the country (Galewski 2007, 94-95). Through her arguments and departures from the norm, she “exposed the injustice of social and political inequities between men and women” and challenged the early republic to remedy it (Zagarri 1998, 206).

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Of the politically active women in her time, Judith Sargent Murray was the most truly feminist in the modern sense of the word. She believed in political independence for women and hoped to “free women from the constraints of marriage market and prepare them to be economically independent” so that they would have the same choices and opportunities as men (Kerber 1980, 204). She believed in the “new ideal of enlightened womanhood” and held the “conviction that women should claim their proper place in the discourse of civic life” going further in empowering women than even liberal ideas about Republican Motherhood (Galewski 2007, 92; Schiff 2000, 214)

While Murray did employ arguments about the importance of Republican Motherhood to further her claims about women’s education, she was much more concerned about the women themselves. She “understood that the only way to accomplish a break with the past was to reform women’s education” and to do that she had to align herself with other education reform occurring in the name of Republican Motherhood (Norton 1980, 297). Still, Murray herself did resemble the “model Republican mother–rational benevolent, and self-reliant” despite some of her more controversial views (Cheek 251).

Murray strongly believed in the abilities of women and their equality to men. Her entire “educational theory [was] based on her belief in the equality of the sexes” (Cheek 260). She didn’t want women to be educated solely to be good wives and mothers but to “extend women’s options and open intellectual and employment opportunities” (Cheek 251). Murray “believed all women should have the ability to earn their own livings and be freed from the bonds of total economic dependency” and this belief drove her life’s work (Cheek 252).